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Jan5

semiotics: the study of signs and symbols, including words, images, sounds, gestures, and objects
Has anyone read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco? Did you understand it? I must confess, I didn’t. I must further confess that I only “understood” T.S. Eliot after a kind friend in college explained to me that I should be content in reading Eliot to grasp phrases and sentences here and there instead of trying to bring the poem into a coherent, organized narrative. So that’s how I read Eliot and most other modern poets. And I guess that’s how I should have read Eco, just being happy to understand parts of the whole. Anyway, Umberto Eco, semiotician and novelist, was born on this date in 1932.
Go here for a short biography of Umberto Eco.
Try here for more information on semiotics (more than you’ll probably want to know).
And here’s a link to Umberto Eco’s best-selling mystery novel.
One more link: it’s also a movie with Sean Connery
I may read The Name of the Rose again someday when I’m feeling particularly intelligent, linguistic, and post-modern. I like Sean Connery and medieval monasteries and mysteries. I can get it, really I can.

7 thoughts on “???????”

  1. Sherry, couldn’t you find a link to “Semiotics for Dummies”? I skimmed through the information about it and struggled to stay awake, but it seems to be a theory that information must be conveyed through some medium (like a weblog) and that the medium affects how you interpret the information. And no, I did not understand a lot of The Name of the Rose, but I have a copy of Foucault’s Pendulum in my library, waiting for me to tackle it some day. Your friend’s advice about Eliot is good, though I tend to want to understand everything or have it explained. I just got a book of poems by Czeslaw Milosz, which I am enjoying, but I would like more context to some of what he writes.

  2. Fairly recently, we linked to an Eco essay:

    http://mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com/2004/09/provando-e-riprovando.html

    And The Name of the Rose was one of our RDAS:

    http://mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com/2004/09/recommended-daily-allowance_18.html

    But this might be your key to the Rose, so to speak:

    The Key to The Name of the Rose: Including Translations of All Non-English Passages
    (Adele J. Haft, Jane G. White, Robert J. White)

    I had thought it was an RDA, but, alas, I can’t find it on M-mv. The book was helpful, though.

  3. I tried to add a comment a few moments ago, but… nothing.

    We linked to an Eco essay here:

    http://mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com/2004/09/provando-e-riprovando.html

    And The Name of the Rose was an RDA in September:

    http://mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com/2004/09/recommended-daily-allowance_18.html

    I thought this book — The Key to The Name of the Rose: Including Translations of All Non-English Passages (Adele J. Haft, Jane G. White, Robert J. White) — was also an RDA, but I can’t find a link. In any event, it is a terrific help.

  4. While I did enjoy on one level The Name of The Rose, I never did “get” what the big deal was. Maybe it’s a guy thing. I did do some background reading but it didn’t help.

    Carmon, I checked Focault out of the library but did not get too far. Maybe someday.

  5. Sherri:

    Maybe the third time is a charm?

    I recommend this book: The Key to The Name of the Rose: Including Translations of All Non-English Passages by Adele J. Haft, Jane G. White, Robert J. White.

  7. Pingback: Semicolon

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